Lake Taupō, in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, fills the caldera of the Taupō Volcano, a large rhyolitic supervolcano. This huge volcano has produced two of the world's most powerful eruptions in geologically recent times. The volcano is in the Taupō Volcanic Zone within the Taupō Rift, a region of rift volcanic activity that extends from Ruapehu in the south, through the Taupō and Rotorua districts, to Whakaari / White Island, in the Bay of Plenty.
History Taupō began erupting about 300,000 years ago. The main eruptions that still affect the surrounding landscape are the dacitic Mount Tauhara eruption 65,000 years ago, the Oruanui eruption about 25,500 years ago, which is responsible for the shape of the modern caldera, and the Hatepe eruption, dated 232 ± 10 CE. There have been many more eruptions, with major ones every thousand years or so (see timeline of last 10,000 years of eruptions). The Oruanui eruption in particular destroyed or obscured much evidence of previous eruptive activity. Taupō Volcano has not erupted for approximately 1,800 years; however, with research beginning in 1979 and published in 2022, the data collated over the 42-year period shows that Taupō Volcano is active with periods of volcanic unrest and has been for some time. Some volcanoes within the Taupō Volcanic Zone have erupted more recently. Mount Tarawera had a moderately violent VEI-5 eruption in 1886, and Whakaari/White Island is frequently active, erupting most recently in December 2019. Geologic studies published in 1888 following the eruption of Mount Tarawera first raised the possibility that there was a volcano under Lake Taupō, rather than the more obvious volcanoes near Mount Tongariro, to explain the likely source of the extensive surface pumice deposits of the central North Island.
Geology The Taupō Volcano erupts rhyolite, a viscous magma, with a high silica content, a feature associated with the middle portion of the Taupō Volcanic Zone within the Taupō Rift. This is an intra-arc rift in the eastern part of the continental Australian Plate, resulting from an oblique convergence with the Pacific Plate in the Hikurangi subduction zone. In this region the Moho discontinuity starts about 25–30 km (16–19 mi) beneath the surface beyond the modern Taupō Rift boundaries to the west and east, but the interpretation of changes in seismic velocity at shallower depth has led to disagreement. Intermediate velocities occur down to between 15–16 km (9.3–9.9 mi) and are believed to be due to mainly quartzo-feldspathic crust. Between 15 and 25 km more mafic rock compositions are indicated by the P-wave velocities. Studies show large areas of partial melt below 10 km (6.2 mi) with a brittle-ductile rock transition at approximately 6–8 km (3.7–5.0 mi) beneath the surface. For unknown as yet reasons, possibly associated with the present high rate of rift spreading and the recent subduction of the Hikurangi Plateau this area is very productive in its surface volcanism. If the magma does not contain much gas, rhyolite tends to just form a lava dome, and such eruptions are more common. However, when mixed with gas or steam, rhyolitic eruptions can be extremely violent. The magma froths to form pumice and ash, which is thrown out with great force. Such eruptions tend to be earlier in any given eruption cycle. If the volcano creates a stable plume, high in the atmosphere, the pumice and ash are blown sideways, and eventually fall to the ground, draping the landscape like snow. If the material thrown out cools more rapidly and becomes denser than the air, it cannot rise as high, and suddenly collapses back to the ground, forming a pyroclastic flow, hitting the surface like water from a waterfall, and spreading sideways across the land at enormous speed. When the pumice and ash settle, they are sufficiently hot to stick together as a rock called ignimbrite. Pyroclastic flows can travel hundreds of kilometres an hour.
Earlier eruptions
Earlier ignimbrite eruptions occurred further north than Taupō. Some of these were enormous, and two eruptions around 1.25 and 1.0 million years ago were big enough to generate an ignimbrite sheet that covered the North Island from Auckland to Napier. While Taupō has been active for about 300,000 years, explosive eruptions have been more typical in the last 42,000 years.
Oruanui eruption
The Oruanui eruption (also known as the Kawakawa event) of the Taupō Volcano was the world's largest known eruption in the past 70,000 years, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8. It occurred around 25,500 years ago and generated approximately 430 km3 (100 cu mi) of pyroclastic fall deposits, 320 km3 (77 cu mi) of pyroclastic density current (PDC) deposits (mostly ignimbrite) and 420 km3 (100 cu mi) of primary intracaldera material, equivalent to 530 km3 (130 cu mi) of magma. Modern Lake Taupō partly fills the caldera generated during this eruption. Tephra from the eruption covered much of the central North Island with ignimbrite up to 200 m (660 ft) deep. The ignimbrite eruption(s) were possibly not as forceful as that of the later Hatepe eruption but the total impact of this eruption was somewhat greater. Most of New Zealand was affected by ashfall, with an 18 cm (7.1 in) ash layer left even on the Chatham Islands, 850 km (530 mi) away which included diatoms from erupted lake sediments. Later erosion and sedimentation had long-lasting effects on the landscape, and caused the Waikato River to shift from the Hauraki Plains to its current course through the Waikato to the Tasman Sea.
Hatepe eruption
The Hatepe eruption (also known as the Taupō or Horomatangi Reef Unit Y eruption) represents the most recent major eruption of the Taupō Volcano, and occurred about 1,800 years ago. It was the most powerful eruption in the world in the last 5,000 years. The type of eruption that occurred is the most extreme volcanic hazard due to the pyroclastic flows very high mobility and heat content. It has been stated to have had an energy release equivalent to about 150 ± 50 megatons of TNT.
Stages of eruption The eruption went through several stages which were redefined in 2003 with at least 3 separate vents:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
